Jeffery Deaver - The Empty Chair

He shrugged, shook his head. Looked around the dim trailer nervously.

But Sachs wasn't going to let it go. Knuckle time…

She said, "Let's think about a specific thing you'd like to talk to him about. An incident. Something you're unhappy about. Was there anything like that?" But Dad was okay to me. Until… The boy was gripping his hands, rubbing them together, clicking his nails. "Tell him, Garrett."

"Okay, I guess there was something."

"What?"

"Well, that night… the night they died."

Sachs felt a faint shudder. Knew they were probably going very hard places with this. She thought for a moment about pulling back. But it wasn't in Amelia Sachs' nature to pull back and she didn't now. "What about that night? You want to talk to your father about something that happened?"

He nodded. "See, they were in the car going to dinner. It was Wednesday. Every Wednesday we went to Bennigan's. I liked the chicken fingers. I'd have the chicken fingers and fries and a Coke. And Kaye, my sister'd get onion rings and we'd split the fries and the rings and sometimes we drew pictures on an empty plate with the squeeze bottle of ketchup."

His face was pale and drawn. There was so much sorrow in his eyes, Sachs thought. She fought down her own emotions. "What do you remember about that night?"

"It was outside the house. In the driveway. They were in the car, Dad and Mom and my sister. They were going to dinner. And" – he swallowed – "what it was they were going to leave without me."

"They were?"

He nodded. "I was late. I'd been in the woods in Blackwater Landing. And I'd kinda lost track of time. I ran, like, a half-mile or something. But my father wouldn't let me in. He must've been mad because I was late. I wanted to get in so bad. It was really cold. I remember I was shivering and they were shivering. I remember there was frost on the windows. But they wouldn't let me in."

"Maybe your father didn't see you. Because of the frost."

"No, he saw me. I was right beside his side of the car. I was banging on the window and he saw me but he didn't open the door. He just kept frowning and shouting at me. And I kept thinking, He's mad at me and I'm cold and I'm not going to get my chicken fingers and French fries. I'm not going to have dinner with my family." Tears ran down his cheeks.

Sachs wanted to put her arm around the boy's shoulders but she remained where she was. "Go on." Nodding toward the chair. "Talk to your father. What do you want to say to him?"

He looked at her but she pointed toward the chair. Finally Garrett turned to it. "It's so cold!" he said, gasping. "It's cold and I want to get in the car. Why won't he let me in the car?"

"No, tell him . Imagine he's there."

Sachs was thinking: This is the same way Rhyme urged her to imagine herself as the perp at crime scenes. It was utterly harrowing and she now felt the boy's fear all too clearly. Still, she didn't let up. "Tell him – tell your father ."

Garrett looked at the old chair uneasily. He leaned forward. "I…"

Sachs whispered, "Go ahead, Garrett. It's okay. I won't let anything happen to you. Tell him."

"I just wanted to go to Bennigan's with you!" he said, sobbing. "That's all. Like, just to have dinner, all of us. I just wanted to go with you. Why wouldn't you let me in the car? You saw me coming and you locked the door. I wasn't that late!" Then Garrett grew angry. "You locked me out! You were mad at me and it wasn't fair. What I did, being late… it wasn't that bad. I must've done something else to make you mad. What? Why didn't you want me to go with you? Tell me what I did." His voice was choked. "Come back and tell me. Come back! I want to know! What did I do? Tell me, tell me, tell me!"

Sobbing, he jumped up and kicked the empty chair hard. It sailed across the room and fell on its side. He grabbed the chair and, screaming in fury, smashed it into the floor of the trailer. Sachs pushed back, blinking in shock at the anger she'd unleashed. He slammed the chair down a dozen times until it was nothing but a shattered mass of wood and rattan. Finally Garrett collapsed on the floor, hugging himself. Sachs rose and put her arms around him as he sobbed and shook.

After five minutes the crying ended. He stood up, wiped his face on his sleeve.

"Garrett," she began in a whisper.

But he shook his head. "I'm going outside," he said. Then rose and pushed out the door.

She sat for a moment, wondering what to do. Sachs was utterly exhausted but she didn't lie down on the mat he'd left for her and try to sleep. She shut the lantern off and pulled the cloth off the window then sat in the musty armchair. She leaned forward, smelling the pungent aroma of the citronella plant, and watched the hunched-over silhouette of the boy, sitting outside on an oak stump and gazing intently at the moving constellations of lightning bugs that filled the forest around him.

Lincoln Rhyme muttered, "I don't believe it." He'd just spoken with a furious Lucy Kerr and had learned that Sachs had taken several shots at a deputy under the Hobeth Bridge.

"I don't believe it," he repeated in a whisper to Thom.

The aide was a master of dealing with broken bodies and spirits broken because of broken bodies. But this was a different matter, far worse, and the best he could do was offer, "It's a mix-up. It has to be. Amelia wouldn't do that."

"She wouldn't ." Rhyme muttered. This time offering the denial to Ben. "There's no way. Not even to scare them off." He told himself that she'd never shoot at a fellow officer, even just to scare them. Yet he was also thinking about what desperate people did. The crazy risks they took. ( Oh, Sachs, why do you have to be so impulsive and stubborn? Why do you have to be so much like me? )

Bell was in the office across the hall. Rhyme could hear him as he spoke endearments over the phone. He supposed that the sheriff's wife and family weren't used to late-night absences; law-enforcement in a town like Tanner's Corner probably didn't require as many hours as the Garrett Hanlon case had taken.

Ben Kerr sat beside one of the microscopes, his huge arms crossed over his chest. He was gazing at the map. Unlike the sheriff he hadn't made any calls home and Rhyme wondered if he had a wife or girlfriend or if the shy man's life was wholly consumed with science and the mysteries of the ocean.

The sheriff hung up. He walked back into the lab. "You have any more ideas, Lincoln?"

Rhyme nodded at the evidence chart.

FOUND AT SECONDARY CRIME SCENE -

MILL

Brown Paint on Pants

Sundew Plant

Clay

Peat Moss

Fruit Juice

Paper Fibers

Stinkball Bait

Sugar

Camphene

Alcohol

Kerosene

Yeast

He reiterated what they knew about the house where Mary Beth was being kept. "There's a Carolina bay on the way to or near the place. Half the marked passages in his insect books are about camouflage and the brown paint on his pants's the color of tree bark so the place is probably in or next to a forest. The camphene lamps are from the 1800s so the place is old, probably Victorian era. But the rest of the trace isn't much help. The yeast would be from the mill. The paper fibers could be from anywhere. The fruit juice and sugar? From food or drinks Garrett had with him. I just can't -"

The phone rang.

Rhyme's left ring finger twitched on the ECU and he answered the call.

"Hello?" he said into the speakerphone.

" Lincoln."

He recognized the soft, exhausted voice of Mel Cooper.

"What do you have, Mel? I need some good news."

"I hope it's good. That key you found? We've been looking through sourcebooks and databases all night. Finally tracked it down."